NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: RIVERSIDE PARK

NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: RIVERSIDE PARK; Dogs and People Want to Run. Who Gets the Spot?

By COREY KILGANNON

Published: September 12, 1999

A proposal to put a dog run inside the running track in Riverside Park, near 72d Street, has track users in an uproar in what Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern described as ''the perfect Upper West Side dog fight.''

At a Community Board 7 meeting Tuesday, many opponents turned up to voice opposition to the plan. Though the board endorsed the dog run in June, after hearing few complaints, its parks committee decided on Thursday to ask the board chairman, Eric Nelson, to consider holding another vote on the project.

A group of dog owners and park users, called Friends and Lovers of Riverside Area Life, or Floral, had long lobbied the Parks Department for a dog run in the south end of the park. Parks officials said they chose the track location after recent surveys showed that few people used the track. Councilwoman Ronnie M. Eldridge has obtained $150,000 in city financing for the project.

With its concrete bleachers, views of the Hudson River and cool breezes, the track occupies a coveted area of the park. Over the summer, word of the planned dog run spread to track users, who mobilized in opposition. The dog run, they say, would create an ugly ''dust bowl'' on the site and hamper use of the track, which dog owners would have to cross to reach the dog run on the interior field.

Several athletic groups and local high schools, including the Collegiate School, Martin Luther King Jr. High School and the Fiorello H. La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts, hold practice on the track and use the field's broad jump and high jump areas.

But at Thursday's meeting, the park's administrator, Charles McKinney, said that during his 15-year tenure ''the last month has been the only time anyone displayed any interest in this track.'' During the summer, he said, groups signed up for only an average of 15 hours of track use a month.

Mr. Stern, in an interview, said the track got ''less than one-tenth the use of the average playground.''

Many members of Floral contend that they need a space to allow their dogs to run off leash. The group has designed a plan for the run, which it wants to call Fala's Field, after the Scottish terrier that belonged to Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt. (A statue of Mrs. Roosevelt stands at the park's 72d Street entrance.) The plan includes a wading pool, hedges around the perimeter and a separate pen for smaller dogs.

Mr. McKinney said there was no other place in the park for a dog run of its size.

But Robert Shanley, president of the Friends of Riverside Park Track and Infield, said the dog run would spoil a tranquil spot.

''It's the absolute worst place in the park for a dog run,'' Mr. Shanley said. ''The Parks Department either didn't do their research or they're incredibly insensitive to the community.''

Riverside Park currently has three dog runs, at 105th and 87th Streets and a temporary one near 77th Street. Floral's president, Dr. Jeffrey Zahn, said that if the temporary pen was enlarged and declared permanent, the group would rescind its request for the new run. COREY KILGANNON

Photo: With views of the Hudson, the running track near 72d Street occupies a coveted area of Riverside Park. A dog run is planned for the space inside the track. (Frances Roberts for The New York Times)